Goldfish eggs

In March 2021 I bought ten small shubunkin goldfish.  

The fish arrived in the post, and were lovely small colourful fish.  I put them in a barrel that I had filled with rain water, added a floating pot of herbs, some duckweed and azolla, and put in a small submersible solar pond pump that pumps the water through a milk bottle filled with gravel that acts as a filter.

Floating pot of herbs in goldfish barrelponics

The fish ate all the duckweed pretty fast, and mostly leave the azolla alone.  I assume this is because the duckweed is small enough to fit in their mouths and the azolla is a bit larger.  

I try to add more duckweed every few days so they always have some food available and don't have to wait hungrily until I feed them.  Having a little azolla floating around isn't a bad thing so I sometimes scoop a little azolla out but always ensure that I leave some behind.

Water is pumped through here as a biological filter

My plants grew incredibly well over winter, but as the weather warmed they ran into some issues.  One of the issues is that the milk bottle full of gravel was knocked off and all the plants were destroyed by a possum or something.  As you can see above, I have started seeds again.

The water has started to turn very green.  I have planted more plants/seeds, but it will take time before they are large enough to clear the water again.  I do some partial water changes, but there are ten fish in the barrel so the water is always reasonably green.

Presumably this is not too big an issue and my fish are healthy as they are spawning!

Look very close and you may see a goldfish egg

The goldfish appeared a bit randy as the spring weather warmed.  Goldfish are known for eating all of their eggs, so I added a spawning mop to the barrel.  The fish have laid some eggs on the spawning mop.

I was busy that day, and in the afternoon there appeared only to be a small number of eggs left.  Presumably the other eggs were all eaten.  I moved this spawning mop with the few remaining eggs into a flexi-tub of water that is in my greenhouse.  The picture above is two days after the spawning mop was moved, the remaining eggs all appeared clear, which is a great sign that they are fertile and developing.

I also made another spawning mop with far more strands and added that to the barrel.  Perhaps the larger number of strands will protect more eggs, and provide a greater chance of some hatching and surviving.  I have checked it once and it has a small number of eggs, I plan to leave it a few more days and hopefully it will collect far more eggs.

Flexitub of water and spawning mop of eggs

The flexitub had been sitting in the greenhouse for many weeks filled with water as I was hoping to get a water lily but haven't yet found one for sale anywhere.  This tub now has some algae and tiny critters living in the water.  I figured this was a good place to move the fish eggs.

I also have a container of water which has a few small pots of sphagnum moss, this water is teeming with tiny life.  I also tipped that water into the flexitub to increase the amount of tiny things swimming around in there.  

If any of my fish hatch they should have plenty of tiny swimming things that are hopefully the correct size for them to eat.

I will add the second spawning mop to the flexi-tub at some stage, than I have to wait to see if any baby fish survive.  They will be tiny and relatively inactive after they hatch, so it will take a few weeks of growth before I will be able to see any baby fish that are in there.  Fingers crossed I get a decent number of baby fish from this hatch.